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Command and Orders

Battle Captains is well under development and is planned for migration to beta status in two weeks. While I cannot give a complete rundown of the rules at this early stage I want to provide a glimpse into what I feel is one of the most important aspects of this game. From the beginning I intended for Battle Captains to replicate, as close as possible, the feeling of commanding a company sized formation in the heat of combat. Years of research, experience, and a group of subject matter experts have all been relied on to capture this elusive feeling.

The development process led me to identify a number of key features which are core to the experience of a junior officer in combat. An initial plan must be drawn up, changing conditions on the field will often require this plan to be modified on the fly, and players must feel like they are simultaneously in control and not in control. In addition to this a number of factors must be included which have varying levels of effect on the players attempt to direct their forces to victory. Their own command quality and the professionalism of their command team, the quality and personality of their subordinate leaders, the quality of their senior NCO corps, the quality of the junior enlisted ranks, the doctrine and guidelines of the institution within which their force was trained, and the availability of fire support assets.

At first glance this is a bewildering array of information that a player will have to deal with in this game I am writing. The key to success then is to find a way to simplify and abstract this complex set of relationships in a way that allows for a playable and enjoyable game, yet does not lose the feel and can still have all of its parts individually identified.

First I decided that I wanted players to be issuing orders in some form or another. One of the facts of combat leadership that I believe is so often missing from wargames is the internal command friction that so often plagues armies. Even if an order is issued without interference or misinterpretation, combat leaders can be expected to tailor their orders to the subordinate leaders they command. Not every Lt is a Rommel in the making and these sorts of officers, while possibly excellent leaders of men in a set tactical sense, cannot be relied on to execute a complex and independent combat maneuver. This led to the development of leader personalities in Battle Captains. Each platoon leader has a personality on a three level scale ranging from timid to bold. This rating has no effect on the specific quality of the leader resulting in some leaders who are great leaders of men but a little cautious and some leaders who are far more ambitious then their abilities would warrant.

Players are expected to issue their platoon leaders one of three orders; defend, attack, and move. How these orders are interpreted by the platoon leaders is determined by their personalities. On a defense order a platoon leader can deploy his sections a certain distance from the orders objective with the bolder leaders granted a larger zone. On the move and attack orders, the platoon leaders personalities affect how far off angle from the objective they may move their sections. This results in players fitting their plans not only to their troops and equipment but also to the tendencies of their platoon leaders.

At the beginning of the game players will be detailing an initial battle plan with objectives and orders. The amount of detail a player can put into this plan is affected both by the size and quality of their recce element and on the quality of the CO themselves. As in all combat situations, this plan will undoubtedly have to be modified as the game progresses. Changing the battle plan as the game progresses is not dependant solely on the quality of the CO but also on the quality of the senior NCO corps. In the heat of battle the CO can be shouting at the top of his lungs into a radio but it is the senior NCOs and the specialists that ensure that the orders are relayed and the troops arrayed in the correct formations to conduct that order. In Battle Captains the player will have a pass condition for their orders attempts based on the rating of the senior NCO corps.

Battle Captains uses a card system to present the player with options. Players have a hand of cards, with a size dependant on the quality of the CO. From their hands players alternate playing cards to perform actions, reactions, and battlefield effects. The composition of these decks is determined by the doctrine of the armies in question. The best combat officers must generally work within the playbook their troops and platoon leaders are familiar with. Additional cards can be added to these decks to add a particular armys flavor. The doctrine of the army is also used to determine the personality of platoon leaders. An army that practices a more flexible doctrine is more likely to produce bold leaders willing to enact risky maneuvers.

The availability of fire support is abstracted as a simple rating that only affects the likelihood of artillery and air support assets during the pre-battle phase of the game. The quality of the junior enlisted troops is a rating like many other qualities but has far reaching effects. The rating of a platoons troops is heavily based on the enlisted corps quality which in turn affects how often the platoon is likely to fail morale checks. In Battle Captains failed morale checks do not force sections and platoons to rout, incoming fire does this often enough, rather every failed morale check adds a special card into the players deck called FUBAR. FUBARs cannot normally be removed or played meaning that once they are drawn into a players hand their hand size is effectively reduced. When a player has a hand of all FUBARs they lose the game. While it is therefore theoretically possible to lose the game once a number of FUBAR cards equal to a players hand size have been added to their deck, frequent reshuffling of the decks usually means more are required. What this mechanism does do well is represent the deteriorating situation combat leaders may find themselves in once their platoons start to take casualties and the fecal matter hits the fan. Play testers have described this phenomenon as standing in the line of fire just one more second than your opponent.

All of these disparate factors are quite seamless in practice and quick to grasp, yet as a framework they provide the player with a situation where they are both in control and not, where their battle plan likely wont survive contact with the enemy, where they have to often tailor their plan to the tendencies and leadership qualities of their subordinates, and where once the shooting starts it becomes difficult to enact perfect control over the battlefield. It has been amusing watching the different play testers reactions to this game. Old school gamers have had difficulty in their first game, claiming a lack of control over the situation. Newer gamers, specifically combat officers drawn in for their insight, have praised the feeling and result of the system as accurate as can be with dice. Most interesting has been the old school gamers on their subsequent games who have done considerably better after realizing that not everything is in their control once the shooting starts and therefore they should focus on what they can control and that the pre-battle preparations are more important than they first realized.

More development reports will be coming over the next few months cataloging such aspects as combat, movement, and fire support, so stay tuned.

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